You could see the glow blocks away, but you waited until you arrived on scene and transmitted a working fire. Actually, you’re words were something to the effect of……

Well anyways, you’ve arrived and you have Heavy Fire evident on numerous floors and extending. You have escalating exposure issues, a rapidly expanding and developing fire with what appears to be lots of fire load in a very old building. If that wasn’t enough, you’ve got the balance of the responding alarm assignment heading your way and fast. You are either the first-due engine company officer or the first-due command officer. (You pick)

In either case, You are the incident commander.
• The building is and L-Shaped structure, circa 1925, with a brick construction.
• You determine construction type
• It’s sized about 80 ft x 120 feet (excluding the L-extension).
• The building is four stories in height.
• It has been vacant for an extended period of time
• It was scheduled to undergo renovation into condominiums.

We’re going to focus our time in the street onto the areas of incident command, preparing for extended operations and developing an incident action plan (IAP).

Here are the simple things to start your tactical gears grinding;
• What is the main goal of your initial IAP?
• What needs to be determined First?
• What are the first series of Strategic Objectives and Assignments?
• What would be the first series of Tactical Level Assignments be?
• What are the realistic resource needs required for this incident?
• What’s your incident management organizational structure going to look like?
• Assuming the degree of fire present now upon your arrival, what do you expect the required fire flow to be sixty minutes from now?
• What are the safety issues that you’re planning for?
• What are you going to do about the exposures?
• When confronted with a fire of this magnitude, what do you think are some of the major considerations that a large scale fire might involve?

Ok, this may be a “typical” fire to you, or it might be one of those career incidents that only come once in a great while. In any event, you’re in the street, you are in charge and there are companies calling you requesting assignments. Oh, by the way, the neighbors are beginning to be drawn to your vehicle, all looking for an immediate answer and resources to keep their homes (exposures) from being part of this “Really Big Fire”. Hey, did you remember to put more ICS forms in the book before you left quarters?